Present Racist humor
Racism Or not?
Early 20th Century Cartoons
Interactive
Racism or Not?
One thing about animation and cartoons in the beginning is that they were not really considered to be racist. Most cartoons were drawn intentionally to be racist because of the time it was made. Not many cartoons or animation features are really racist unless it crosses some limit to ridicule that certain race. The reason some characters are drawn the way they are is to show people who the character is trying to be. There is a difference of drawing a normal man to drawing a man with slant eyes. The way they are drawn is to give the public a first impression of who the character is so that they won't have to give some story to tell who he is and why he is the way he is. Though there has also been a limit to where some of the animators degrade some of these races from the plot of the story or go way pass the limit of how they are drawn.
For example, Many African American characters are drawn to having very big lips and to be sometimes dimwitted. Also in one cartoon Bugs Bunny refers to the Japanese people as “Japs”, this word is very offensive to Japanese people because it was used in world War II by American Soldiers as a demeaning way. So not many cartoons are really “racist”, they are only drawn the way they are only to give them character such as a Mexican man to have a sombrero and a huge black Mustache and wearing some kind of Poncho. Its not Degrading the Mexicans it is only the Stereotypical thing that people think when they think of a Mexican so it gives the people an image of who the character is after seeing that. Also that is especially important too because main Audiences of Cartoons are small children who wouldn’t really understand and it is way easier for them to understand.